Free SNAP: New Talent by Michele Drier Page B

European hotel.  Shades of the Sacher in Vienna, George V in Paris or the Grand Bretagna in Athens.  It took up an entire block and looked like a Victorian wedding cake.
    “This is wonderful.  I usually stay at apartments owned by SNAP or the Baron, but this is lovely.  I’m changing my mental image of Kiev.”
    Taras giggled.  “A lot of our visitors are surprised that we have amenities.   This is part of the kind of information we want to get out.  Attracting celebrities will make our job easier.”
    “And it may dilute the power of the oligarchs and their boys.”  Nikoly’s voice was light, but the words held menace. 
    Once in my suite, I freshened up and then the demon parade followed me back to the limo where Nikoly was waiting.
    “Where’s Taras?”  I looked around.
    “He’s gone to the offices to make sure everything is ready for your visit.  I wanted to have a few moments with you alone.”  I got in, the demons took their places in the front, the communication window zipped up and Nikoly said, “Jean-Louis told me about the Chechen attack in Paris”
    Damn the man!  I thought we were all going to hand out the story of a slip-and-fall.  Like any good vampire, Nikoly read my body language, or maybe the waves of anger I was sending off, because he held up a hand.
    “No one knows about the true event beside me.  Jean-Louis and the Baron felt I needed to know because I’m here, in the home of the thugs.  We’re hoping that I can trace the money and the orders and find out who’s hired the Chechens.”
    “The Huszars have hired them!”
    “Well, yes.  But who exactly?  And what are they planning to do?  And many times when one hires them, the employees take over the business.  They have a history of going off on their own when they smell money.  There’s not a lot of money with the Huszars, but with the Kandeskys...”
    He didn’t need to say any more.  I was reading this picture, and it wasn’t a pretty one.  The Chechens were after me.  The Huszars had put out a contract.  But now, the Chechens may have made a target of their own.
     Where was my quiet bedroom overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica?  Where were my friends, the warm afternoons of coffee in Westwood, even zany Venice Beach?
    Nikoly looked over at me.  “Do you want to quit?  Jean-Louis told me you weren’t the quitting type.”

Chapter Fifteen
    Of course I wasn’t the quitting type. But I was, for damn sure, the scared type.
    I took a deep breath.  “Okay, let’s go to the SNAP offices.”
    “We’re here.” Nikoly gestured to a very modern steel and glass building several stories high that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Century City.  Workers on scaffolds were busy attaching the SNAP mirrored logo to the outside and when I walked in, I was met with an ice-blond SNAP girl as the receptionist behind the black marble counter.
    Her Russian Red mouth smiled but her blue eyes stayed cold.   “And you are?”
    “I am Maximilla Gwenoch, the Managing Editor of SNAP,” I snapped.  Really, didn’t anyone call ahead?
    At least she had the grace to smile at me with her eyes this time.  “I’m sorry Ms. Gwenoch, we expected you to come in the employees entrance.  Let me page Taras for you.”  She murmured into her earbud while the phone gurgled then said “Taras’ assistant will be right out.”
    Sure enough, a dark-haired young woman wearing four-inch stilettos came through the wall of mirrors behind the reception desk and said, “Follow me.”  I assumed she said that, because she waved me in, but she wasn’t speaking English.  Like Alice, like L.A., I walked into the mirror.
    The interior offices were much quieter and smaller than home, but the designer had spent time making the look-and-feel as close to L.A. as he could.  There were probably 10 people working in cubicles, phones gurgled, voices spoke a variety of languages. 
    Taras was standing in front of his office, tucked away